Skin
by InconstantSea
Summary: The uprising may be over. But the repercussions—the aftershocks of grief—are far from faded. Peeta's POV. Rated M for language and sexual content.
1. Scars

**In case this story looks familiar, it was originally posted last spring. I removed it for personal reasons, but recently stumbled upon it and decided to re-upload. **

**One week.**

A labyrinth of scars. That's what he sees. That's what he's forced to look at, to glare and gawp and frown at, when he steps before a mirror. Peeta tries to avoid it. He doesn't turn on the bathroom light, or trim his ever-growing stubble, or—hell, he'll occasionally take a leak in the backyard, just to avoid that mirror.

Peeta knows he's being ridiculous. They're just scars. Just rigid threads of white amongst jagged pink. But he hates them. Not because he's superficial; he couldn't give a damn that they've marred his skin. He doesn't have anyone to impress—at least, not anymore. No, it's because they're reminders. Each scar is a souvenir of pain, of heartbreak and loss, and of _her_.

Then again, Peeta doesn't need an incentive to remember her.

He hates her. _No, you don't._ Well, he wants to hate her. He wants to blame her for what happened. She manipulated and lied and condescended. She _broke_ him. And the sad part, the really pathetic part, the part that makes him scream and thrash and grab at his mottled skin, is that he still loves her. And he probably always will.

Peeta scoffs at their situation. Well, at _his_ situation. Because there is no "they," no "their," and definitely no "our." Just _his_ and _hers_. She'd made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing to do with him. He thought that they could be friends. He thought that she'd want to… Well, he doesn't know what he thought. But when he ventured to her house, bearing primroses to plant in Prim's honor, she'd looked at him with such scorn, such _fear, _as if he might rip her at the seams.

What she doesn't know, and what he's been too ashamed to mention, is that he couldn't hurt her. Sure, he still has episodes, but he also has love. A stupid, never-ending, infuriating love.

Back in the Capitol, after she'd shot Coin, he watched as she tried to swallow that pill of nightlock. And he was consumed with anger. Not because he'd wanted her dead, but because she couldn't do that to him. She couldn't leave him. Not after what he'd done to find his way back to her, digging through the recesses of his polluted mind, dismantling and re-building every memory, discovering a love that he'd believed was gone. So he stopped her. He preserved her life so that _they_ could have a life. Together.

Once again, he'd been wrong. She didn't want him. Or the possibility of a life with him.

If he could believe in a deity—and he can't, not after… everything—Peeta would be certain that he'd angered the fates. Some merciless god must be smirking at his misery. Peeta pictures him—this unpitying god—watching, cackling, as Peeta spirals. As if it were entertainment, as if it were another _game_.

The uprising may be over. The smoke may have cleared. The bodies may be buried. But the repercussions—the aftershocks of grief—are far from faded. They're comfortably seated in the eyes of broken families, in the rubble of towns, and on his skin. All over his scarred, burned, irreparably ruined skin.

Sitting in his bed at night, unsleeping, he lies in a mess of sheets. He can't remember the last time that he rested. Was it two days ago? Or a week? The hours bleed into one another. The night blurs into morning and the morning quickly becomes noon.

He's been going through the motions, developing a routine at Dr. Aurelius's request. He'll bake in the morning, paint in the afternoon, stare at walls in the evening, and fail to sleep at night. The nights are the worst; it's when he can't help but think about Katniss.

_Katniss_.

He's been avoiding her name. Because when he does think it—or worse, say it—he can't help but do it again. And again. He'll repeat it over and over, like a perverse mantra.

_Katniss. Katniss. Katniss. _

It distorts as he continues_._ Syllables fuse together.

_Kiss. Kiss. Kiss._

He tries not to think about their kisses, the moments that they shared in the Games and Quell and during the Victory Tour. He knows that they didn't mean anything. But in the still of night, it takes all of his willpower—too much willpower to forget. And far too often, he'll lose himself in the memory of her lips, a whisper against his own. Light, but unyielding. The slightest taste of licorice.

Frustrated and aroused, his hand will ghost over an erection. With increasing speed, he'll stroke and he'll grunt and he'll wish—no, he'll pretend—that it's her hand on his cock. He comes to the memory of one-sided kisses—empty kisses. And it's not surprising that when he's done, when he's cleaned up and seated himself among sweaty sheets, he, too, feels empty.

Tonight, awake and too weary to jerk off, Peeta leaves his bed. He wanders to an adjacent window and stares, as if by reflex, at her house. Her lights are on. She isn't sleeping either. He wishes he could go to her, to sit by her or look at her or _something_.

But he doesn't. He can't. And he knows that she won't come to him.


	2. Throats

**Three weeks. **

"What are you—oh."

Katniss had caught him. He had tried to be quiet, but it's impossible to dull the thud of a prosthetic leg. He'd been leaving a loaf of bread on her porch. It was part of his new routine, making sure that she ate, even if he wasn't around—couldn't be around—to watch her eat it. But each morning, yesterday's bread would be gone and he'd leave a new one.

"You don't have to—." She stops abruptly, as if surprised by her voice. It's hoarse from lack of use.

He replies, "It's okay. I wanted to." Needed to, actually. She'd become uncomfortably frail. Her skin was pulled taut over jutting bones. And it's not that he cared—well, okay, he cared. But leaving these loaves was about him, not her. It was his self-flagellating penance; he'd walk within inches of her home, never entering, reminding himself that he didn't have the _right_ to enter. And leaving these loaves—it was a measly, paltry thing. A not-so-gentle reminder that he wasn't her hero, that he couldn't save her. But he could bake. So, he baked.

"Oh. Well, thank you." She reaches for the bread, which rests in Peeta's outstretched hand. Their fingers graze, just barely. A shock runs through their bodies and the bread falls to the ground. She lurches back, holding her fingers like she's cradling a wound. He tenses, awaiting an onslaught of—of what? Screams, diatribes, the _whoosh_ of her fleeing body? But it doesn't come.

She seems unsure of what to do with herself. He waits.

"Peeta." It might be a question, or it might be an accusation, but he relishes the sound of his name on her lips. He nods, unsure of how to respond.

Eyes locked on Katniss, Peeta grips the banister of her porch. Lately, the world swivels at will and he's forced to anchor himself to solid surfaces—a hand on a railing, a foot on the ground, and if all else fails, he'll gnaw on the inside of his cheek.

Their reverie is ended as Haymitch curses in the distance. A goose got loose, fleeing from the confines of its paddock—and in all likelihood, from Haymitch. If things were different, Peeta might've laughed. But Peeta's unsure if he knows how—to laugh, to smile, to feel genuine and unadulterated joy. It's as if a frown were tattooed on his skin, and tears lay on the dogged cusps of his eyes, never quite falling but never quite drying. And if he were to laugh—or attempt to snicker—he's certain he'd emit a gasping cough. Joy, Peeta reckons, has little place in District 12.

As Haymitch lumbers in the distance, encased in a microclimate of arctic curses and boozy stink, Katniss lurches for the bread and leaps indoors—all in a single, swift motion. Peeta is momentarily impressed by her speed, unspoiled by years of physical and emotional warfare. But he doesn't dwell; he's been left on her porch, staring at a closed door.

He swallows, blinks, and ignores the throb of his heart. He heads toward Haymitch's, in search of a wayward goose.

* * *

"Still?"

Having succeeded in capturing the luckless waterfowl, Peeta sits in Haymitch's kitchen. He'd found Haymitch in rare form, middling between sobriety and a dwindling hangover. Thrown by Haymitch's question, he wonders if he'd been mistaken: maybe Haymitch _is_ drunk.

"Still what?" Peeta responds. His words are patient, as if he were speaking to—or mollifying—a witless child.

Installed in Haymitch's kitchen, amid piles of rubbish and the stench of rotting food, Peeta isn't annoyed with his former mentor. He can't muster any annoyance or outrage—not at the lack of sanitation, nor at Haymitch's alcoholic backslidings. On these lurching, shadowed nights, Peeta commiserates. He understands what he hadn't understood.

Peeta sees why Haymitch lives in squalor. He can't be bothered to shine a counter, when a shine requires work, exertion, thinking. But decay, disuse, the assembly of trash—they're the opposite. It's a slide into madness, into the abandonment of reason and order. And men like Haymitch, men that've slaved under a regime of dictates and coerced peace—they grow to hate it. Order, that is. There's rebellion in clutter. There's mutiny in the muddle. And there's salvation in giving oneself to chaos. Somewhere.

Lost in a miasma of thoughts and digressions, Peeta had forgotten that he had asked a question. He's bemused when Haymitch responds.

"That look. It's the same puppy-dog look that you were sporting in the Games. Haven't you learned your lesson?" Haymitch punctuates his words with condescension; this fleeting sobriety has not dulled his meanness.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Peeta chafes.

"Yeah, you do. Leave it, kid." Haymitch is right, of course. Peeta knows exactly what Haymitch is referring to. His love for Katniss is palpable. It underlies his actions, is etched on his skin—and apparently, is amid the clouded blue of his eyes.

They had barely interacted—he and Katniss. And in each instance, he veiled his emotions under a shroud of remorse and reticence and reserve. Little good it'd done. Haymitch could smell it on him, just as Peeta could smell the liquor on Haymitch's breath.

"Give me that," Peeta ejects, grabbing the nearest bottle. He empties its contents on the back of his tongue. It burns, tastes vile, and Peeta barely succeeds in swallowing. But he's endured worse, and he decides that a little liquor won't best him.

"The old Peeta didn't drink."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the old Peeta."

"You sure aren't," Haymitch grates, a scowl on his lips and a hint of despair in his eyes.

* * *

Some hours later, Peeta stirrs. He is still seated at Haymitch's table. His head is resting on a pile of damp napkins, which he suspects are moist with drool. He attempts to open his eyes, but is immediately pained by the ambush of light. He needs to get up, but can't find the energy—or his center of gravity. His head is pulsing and his mouth is unpleasantly dry, awash with the bitterness of bile and stale liquor. He is lost in a whirlpool of shifting, throbbing tides.

He's finally convinced himself to lift his head when he hears the echo of footsteps. He chooses to remain still.

Through the fog of his hangover, he hears Haymitch jeer, "Oh, look who's come to join the party."

"What are you… Is he—did you get him drunk?" It's Katniss's voice.

"I didn't 'get him' anything. I'm not his keeper."

"But you were his mentor!" Peeta, head on arms, eyes still closed, can imagine Katniss's scowl. But he can't understood it. What does she care if he's drunk? What does she care if he pole vaults off of roofs? If she actually gave a damn, she wouldn't avoid him like a nest of tracker jackets.

"Yeah, and you're supposed to be his friend," Haymitch supplies, voice riddled with frustration.

"I am his—"

Haymitch interrupts, "The hell you are! Listen, sweetheart, you can go around and pretend that you're the only one who's lost someone, that you're the only one who's dealing with stuff. Throw yourself a pity party, for all I care. But leave the boy alone."

Haymitch's tirade is met by deafening silence. A long moment passes, and Peeta decides that Katniss must have left.

After several seconds—or is it minutes?—he hears a quiet, venomous retort. "Go to hell, Haymitch."

"See you there, sweetheart."


	3. Hands

**One month. **

She's invited him to dinner.

She approached him as he'd been watering her primroses. He was fairly certain that Katniss didn't tend to them; they'd already started to wither. Peeta was focused on the flowers when he heard a small, deliberate cough. He started, turning on his heels. There, standing in muddied clothing, eyeing him with bemusement, was Katniss.

She was quiet for a brief moment, but then, in a torrent of hurried words, she gushed, "Do you—do you want to come over for food? Later. You know, for dinner. Sae always makes too much and it just goes to waste and I thought…" Her words melted into a voluble silence, into mumbling that verged on incoherence.

He was dumbstruck. It took several moment to realize that she was waiting on his answer. He stuttered a quick "yes."

He may have been hallucinating, but Peeta thinks that he sees her smile before she dashes indoors.

* * *

Three hours later, standing in his bathroom, he stares at his unforgiving mirror—the mirror that he had set out to avoid. He's oddly nervous.

"It's just dinner. It doesn't mean anything," he tells himself.

He runs a hand through his blonde mop, wondering if he should cut it. He knows that he looks a bit disheveled. Actually, he looks like a man that lost his leg, was tortured, and survived a war. But as he stands in his mirror, fidgeting with the collar of his shirt, he almost feels like an eighteen-year-old kid, heading to dinner with the girl that he loves.

Of course, things will never be that simple. He may be eighteen in years, but he's seen more—felt more—than anyone deserves to experience. And things with Katniss… That'll never be simple. Even if she did love him, even if she felt the slightest echo of his feelings, they'd never have an easy romance. Dinners would be peppered with silence as they negotiated a chasm of unmentionable subjects—things that they can't bring up, things they don't have the heart to talk about. And their kisses would be laced with the memory of contrived pecks, demanded by Capitol audiences. And if they were to have sex, if they were to remove their clothing and place kisses on skin, their eyes would be drawn to scars.

Their bed would never be free from horrors. Because, and Peeta hates himself for thinking it, they are the horrors—he and Katniss. A mess of burnt skin and shattered hearts and knowing eyes.

"You're pathetic," he grates at his appearance. With one last glance at the mirror, he shuts off the light and heads to Katniss's.

* * *

Dinner is… polite. Not quite uncomfortable, but a bit superficial. It's an exercise in niceties and cursory smiles.

It started off well enough. He handed her a small bundle of cheese buns, she'd thanked him with a smile; she offered him a seat, he dutifully sat; he complimented Sae's cooking, she concurred with his assessment. See, _polite_.

And Peeta hates it.

Polite is for strangers, for passing acquaintances and peripheral friends. He and Katniss are _not_ strangers. No, for better or worse, they've been linked—by the mirroring of their scars and by the inimitable pain of their experiences. After a short interval, stewing in the hush of their mutual politeness, Peeta is exasperated.

And maybe that's why he sabotages things.

He begins, "It's weird, isn't it? The fact that we have nothing to talk about?"

Katniss assents, but has nothing to add. She smiles in apology and starts on a large, if conveniently timed, spoonful of stew.

He continues, "You'd think, after everything we've been through, that you might have something to say to me. Like, 'how're you dealing with things?'or 'any recent episodes?' or maybe, just fucking maybe, 'I'm sorry for avoiding you, Peeta.'"

If Peeta is surprised by the fury in his words, Katniss is doubly so. She looks at him, for what feels like the first time all evening, as if truly seeing him. In the distant recesses of his mind, Peeta realizes this is the first time he's sworn in front of Katniss. He flinches at the realization, but cannot halt the advance of his anger.

Maybe Hatmitch has gotten to him, or the weeks in solitude, or maybe it was a matter of time, but he's suddenly furious. His vision blurs as he stares at Katniss, at her messy braid and hopelessly rumpled clothing. He's lost to a series of flashbacks—or are they hijacked creations? Her face transforms: gone are the delicate features, those silver-grey eyes, replaced by a monstrous haze, a face contorted in hate and unmistakable fury.

"Peeta?"

Peeta is flooded by blood-soaked memories, by a blitzkrieg of building terror. He loses sight of Katniss's kitchen, transplanted to the arena, to images of insincere kisses and snarling—

"Peeta!"

—mouths, the mouth of a mutt, encasing Katniss's face. A face that has haunted his dreams and waking hours, and should he run or should he fight, to hurt her for all she's hurt him, and—

"Peeta, please! Come back to me. Come back to me, Peeta!"

—and what is she saying? It's a trick, don't listen! His hands twitch, begging to be laced around Katniss's throat, to crush the delicate line of her… Wait. _Delicate_? No, Katniss isn't delicate, she's… He can't be sure what she is. His vision unclouds, just for an instant, but he sees her, kneeling before him as he lies on the ground. When did he get on the ground?

"Peeta, Peeta, I can't lose you, too. Please."

And then, she does something that Peeta doesn't expect—though in retrospect, he knows that he should. She leans in, warily, ever so slowly, placing her lips on his. He bucks back, shocked and horrified, horrified by the touch of a treacherous mutt, but she's insistent. Her lips, like her, are obstinate. It is simple, and it is coarse, and it is déjà vu. He remembers their kisses, their nights on the train, their promises, _her_.

He drifts back to reality, settling into his skin. He no longer struggles against her lips, which have not wavered in their firmness. She senses this change and leans back on her heels.

She's eyeing him with a mixture of uncertainty and relief. He's not sure what to say—for what seems to be the thousandth time this evening. So, he does something that Katniss doesn't expect—though in retrospect, she knows that she should. He takes her hand—just her fingers, really—squeezing with the faintest of touches.

They sit there for some time, quiet and unmoving, fingers tangled. Peeta wonders if it's a self-delusion, this moment of peace. And maybe it is. Maybe it is a whispered reassurance over a shrieking cry. And maybe they'll always be lost.

But that's the thing about Katniss. He's never really sure where they are or where they're headed, if things are good or if they're falling apart. But he's certain that there's no one else—not one damn person—with whom he'd prefer to be lost.


	4. Cuts

**Six weeks. **

"Katniss?"

Peeta is entering Victory Village when he spots her. She is staring at the primroses, immobile and unresponsive. He nears her rigid form, advancing with stilted steps, as if he were trailing a creature in the wild. He looks to the primroses. Their petals have started to brown and litter the surrounding soil; their leaves, severed from branches by the autumn air. Fall has descended on District 12, all morning chills and greying dusks.

Katniss, spellbound by the darkening petals, makes no attempt to greet Peeta.

"Katniss, what are you… Are you okay?" He knows the answer before he asks the question. She isn't.

And Peeta isn't surprised. It was one of those days—one of those unnatural, unnerving days, during which the world is too quiet and the sky is too white.

He had awoken at an unreasonable hour. Turning to his window, eyes coated with a brittle film, he glared at the encroaching light. Just past dawn.

Unable to sleep, he made his way through the skeletal infrastructure of District 12, dotted with half-built houses and the charred atomies of former shops. The summer was breathing its last, sprinkling fields and streets with a humid spittle. But it wasn't bitingly cold. Nor was it pleasantly brisk. Nor blustery, nor breezy, nor sufficiently moist. The weather was in a curious stage of non-being, Peeta had thought.

And Peeta is used to extremes: to extreme hunger and extreme heat; to an eternal love, not trifling crushes; to mindboggling pain, to limb-breaking, skin-tearing, blood-wrenching pain; and to a litany of battles and skirmishes, one succeeding another. Now, meandering through the mundane, Peeta is nonplussed. He is unaccustomed to the monotony of peace, and cannot fathom a world of humdrum realities and dreary weather. Walking through town, he ricochets between suspicion and premonitions of terror.

So no, he isn't surprised when he finds Katniss, trembling but deadpan.

Nor is he surprised when she erupts in a fury of motion, tearing at the browning flowers, ravaging and razing. But the flowers won't go down without a fight. Her arms are soon bathed in scratches, bloody cuts from overhanging thorns. "They can't die!" she screams, "No, I won't let them!"

"Katniss! Katniss, stop!" Peeta leaps toward Katniss, pulling her from the primroses. She writhes in his arms, shrieking with uncharacteristic abandon. He doesn't let go. His arms smart with effort; Katniss was always stronger than she looked. Finally, finally, her body slumps against his, her cries muffled by his shirt. He holds her for a moment, two moments, then dropping his arms and treading backward. She collapses into a mound of weary limbs.

She laments, "It's my fault. She'd be here, if it weren't for me."

"Look at me," Peeta responds. She doesn't. Her eyes are stubbornly fixed on the ground, eight inches to the left of Peeta's foot.

He insists, "Katniss, look at me." After some delay, she raises her eyes to Peeta's. Hers are brimming with unshed tears, and Peeta wishes that he had perfect words—words to make her eyes blink clear, to force her brows to unfurrow, and her lips to cease their quivering. But he doesn't. The Old Peeta never failed to deliver, but words are difficult for New Peeta. _New and Unimproved_, he reckons, the words echoing through his skull. But he knows that Katniss needs him. She needs him to be that boy—that silver-tongued and wide-eyed boy.

So he tries, opening his mouth, hoping that the words aren't glued to the enamel of his teeth. "Katniss, you didn't do this. You aren't at fault. The Snows and the Coins and the Seneca Cranes of this world—_they're_ at fault."

Katniss is unconvinced, interjecting, "But I didn't save her. I did this, _all of this_, for her. And I couldn't save her. I just… I let her—"

It's Peeta's turn to interrupt. "You didn't 'let' her die! There's nothing you could have done. I know this goes against your nature, everything you stand for, but you can't blame yourself when things are out of your control. And you need to remember that you've saved so many others—the lives of sisters and brothers and fathers, each of whom is loved, just as you loved Prim. And if she could see you, she wouldn't want you to carry on like this, forever mourning her ghost, never allowing yourself to live. You know that she wouldn't want this."

"You don't get it. You didn't—"

"I 'didn't' what? Lose my entire family? Because I did. I _do_ understand. But I don't believe that they'd want me to be in pain, to become some shell of myself. Katniss, we didn't die in the revolution. We're still here. Living, breathing. And yeah, it's fucking _hard_. At times, it's miserable. But we're alive. And if you wasted it, it'd be—well, it'd be an insult to Prim's memory."

For a moment, Peeta is sure that Katniss is going to punch him. She glowers at him, bristling with palpable irritation. But her body deflates and her fists unfurl. "You're starting to sound like Haymitch," she mutters.

Peeta isn't sure if it's an insult. "Yeah, well, I'm starting to think that Haymitch knows more than we give him credit for."

Katniss raises an incredulous eyebrow, but remains silent.

Peeta is about to excuse himself, to flee from the scene before he can make things worse, when Katniss finally speaks. "I just… What am I supposed to do? Just forget?"

"No, you _don't_ forget. We won't forget." Katniss's voice had lost its hysteric edge, but Peeta worries at what remains: an undiluted sadness. As she spoke, Katniss had looked so fragile, so vulnerable, and it takes everything in Peeta's power to stop himself from clasping her body, from crowding her with his embrace. He knows that she'd shrink from his touch, so he remains still. Softly, he continues, "I don't know if we ever could forget, but maybe that's a good thing. We have to remember all the good and all the beauty, the kindness and loyalty, everything that Prim and Cinna and Finnick brought to this world. Because that's what we were fighting for, isn't it? And we need to remember all the horrors, too. To make sure that they _never_ happen again."

Katniss considers these words. She sets her eyes on Peeta's face, appraising his features, flitting from the scars on his neck to the blue of his eyes. Quietly, almost as if she is speaking to herself, she says, "You're still you, aren't you?"

"I think I have you to thank for that."

"What do you mean?"

Peeta hesitates, unsure if he should answer, but he's never been good at keeping things from Katniss. "I'm only really myself when with you. It's like… you're a part of me. Even when I wanted to hurt you. It's like with my leg. Sometimes I can still feel it, you know, like phantom pain or itches. But I think if I lost you, it'd be worse. It'd be more than some nagging pain in the back of my mind. I'd always be incomplete, broken, without you. And being with you now… it helps me remember who I once was, who I can be."

"Peeta…" Katniss is stunned, struggling to form words. It's the first time that he's said anything like this—any mentions of his love for her—since the Quell. A fact that isn't lost on either of them.

He wishes that she'd respond. He wishes that she'd say something, anything, to pay lip service—at the very least!—to his words. But he knows that she can't, so he offers, "It's okay. You don't have to reply."

It dawns on Peeta that their thing—the whole protecting-each-other thing—isn't limited to the battlefield. Even in the midst of a conversation, he tries to save her. From the pain of certain topics, from the wounds that they inflict, and that she inflicts on herself.

Suddenly, Peeta is exhausted. He and Katniss have been dancing around these feelings, this uneasy friendship (or is it a romance?), for weeks. For years, really. But their dance is clumsy, all stubbed toes and knocking foreheads. Peeta wishes, for the umpteenth time, that he had a guidebook to Katniss, a how-to for their dance.

"I think I have an idea," Katniss supplies, "for how we can remember, I mean. I want to make a book."

Peeta is relieved—and if he's being honest, a little hurt—that Katniss had drifted to other topics, placing their relationship (pseudo-relationship? quasi-friendship?) on the back burner. He asks, "A memory book?"

"Will you help?"

"I'd love to."


	5. Lips

**Ten weeks.**

Peeta jolts upward, fleeing from the stranglehold of a nightmare. He can't remember details, but senses that it was dreadful, a tangle of growling and scowling and burning heartache. Sweat has pooled on his abdomen and at his hairline. He feels as if he's run a mile in burlap.

Squinting in darkness, it occurs to Peeta that he isn't in bed. No, he isn't in a bed at all, but on a couch… Katniss's couch, swathed in (and sweating though) Katniss's blanket.

He doesn't remember falling asleep. The last he knew, he was working on the memory book, painting a grisly image of Cato's death.

Gauging from the brightness of the moon, gleaming behind treetops and seeping through a nearby window, it's well after midnight. He must have dozed off. And Katniss must have placed this blanket over him. Peeta doesn't—can't—ignore the pleasure that this image brings.

Though Peeta is loath to return home, he can't sleep on a couch. He'll awake with a crick in his neck, sure to receive a questioning glance from Greasy Sae—or with his luck, a brazen smirk from Haymitch.

He is steps from the front door when he hears a resounding _thump, _emanating from the second floor. Though it's muffled by walls and wood, Peeta's sure that he hears a small cry. His vision swarms with possibilities, with horrifying scenarios that he'd realize were foolish if he paused to assess them. But he doesn't. He races up Katniss's stairs, thundering along the corridor, opening doors as he sees them. On his third try, he finds himself in Katniss's bedroom—a room he hasn't entered since those months before the Quell.

In his unthinking panic, Peeta had expected to find a fresh batch of horrors—a resurrected Snow, perhaps. But what he finds is tragically familiar: Katniss in the violent heart of a nightmare, tossing and whimpering. Somehow, in the midst of her thrashing, she had knocked over a lamp, now sprawled at the foot of a bedside table. _The_ _thump_, Peeta concludes.

He perches on the lip of Katniss's bed, grabbing onto her arms and pleading with her to wake. He's less gentle than he should be. Though her bedroom is dark, lit only by moonlight, Peeta sees that her cheeks are damp, partitioned by a trail of her tears. Enfolded in crinkled sheets and upturned pillows, she seems criminally small. No one would guess that she was a nation's savior.

"Peeta?" she asks. "You were dy—they'd caught you and… Wait, what are you doing in here?"

"Sorry, I was downstairs and I heard… I heard you crying. I just thought—"

"Thank you," she interrupts. He nods, now aware that they're sitting on her bed, well after midnight and with no one—no parents, no adults—to check their behavior.

He's turning to leave when she says, "Peeta, can you stay?"

* * *

In the weeks that follow, Peeta and Katniss find themselves in a new normal. On most days, they'll work on their book, smiling at pleasant memories, grimacing at things they'd rather forget. And at night, they crawl into Katniss's bed, hoping to stave off their loneliness. Each is lost in a reservoir of unsaid thoughts, but it isn't uncomfortable.

On some days, they go hours without seeing one another, without talking or sharing glances. And on most of those days—the days that she hunts and he bakes—it's inadvertent. But on others, it's deliberate. She plunges herself in solitude, in too much pain to grant desultory smiles. And he sequesters himself in his home, unsure of what's real and what's dangerous and what—or who—he can trust. But each night, without fail or hesitation or comment, they find their way to one another.

Peeta's body will fold around Katniss's, his arm under her head, her back to his chest. She doesn't slink from his touch. And in the quiet of night, he isn't shy about giving it. He'll stroke her cheek and toy with her curls, embrace her as she trembles and cries. Peeta is disappointed that he can't hold her nightmares at bay, but he isn't surprised. The sad fact is, her nightmares—and his—are scarcely worse than their memories.

If anyone notices that Peeta and Katniss are sharing a bed, they don't comment. And Peeta is grateful. He doesn't know what it means and is unwilling to dissect it, and he's afraid that his thoughts might jeopardize it. In the past year, closeness—human contact and conversation, even when superficial—had become a luxury. Lying by Katniss is a treasure that he is reluctant to risk.

It never occurs to Peeta to ask for more, to wish for kisses in place of hugs, or toothy grins in place of nervous smiles.

He's rather startled when, one evening, Katniss places her lips on his. She'd woken from a nightmare, tears wetting her eyelashes and hands quaking with fear. Peeta, obeying their tacit ritual, was silent. But he held her, and he dried her tears with the back of his hand, and he smoothed the creases in her forehead. Without preamble or permission, she had turned to Peeta, assaulting him with her lips. "Make me forget," she whispers.

A different man might've smiled against her lips. But Peeta is baffled—and, okay, offended. Katniss sprints from the objectionable, from moments that she is ill equipped to process. And it had struck Peeta that she uses kisses—their kisses—as a diversion. To shut _him_ up or _herself_ down. And far too often, it works.

As much as Peeta loves Katniss, and though he wishes her fervor were evidence of an unstated affection, he knows that it isn't. It can't be. And he hates that Katniss uses these moments, moments that he yearns for and relishes, as a means to an end—or more exactly, an escape.

He knows that he must end their kiss, that he should disentangle his body from their mess of limbs. But Peeta's still a man. And goddamnit, he enjoys kissing her.

And there's a piece of Peeta—a rather selfish piece, dormant in his pre-hijacking days—that believes he has earned this moment. He _deserves_ something good, something untainted by the menace of ghosts or the overhang of grief. It's this piece, this often buried piece, that wins out. And it eggs Peeta on.

"Katniss," he rasps against her lips. His hand journeys from her cheek, down the column of her neck and the lines of her collarbone. It glides over the curve of her hip, lingering on the inch of flesh that separates her t-shirt from low-slung pants. He splays his fingers over the skin, stroking its uneven landscape—the crests of scar tissue and the gulf between hipbones.

Katniss's scars don't repulse Peeta. She once mocked his weakness for beauty, but Peeta is uninterested in the pristine, in immaculate faces and the cloying pretense of perfection. He'd much prefer something that's _real_—a beauty like Katniss's, fierce and flawed.

Emboldened by her kisses, by the weight of her hands in his hair and against his back, he shifts over Katniss, pressing her into the mattress. He wraps his fingers around her left thigh, hitching it over his hip and settling between her legs. His erection is immersed in heat, pulsing against Katniss's core. He worries that he's gone too far, but is rewarded with a throaty moan. Katniss gasps against his lips, grabbing at Peeta's skin with a newfound vigor. For a moment, Peeta is thrilled. His hips thrust forward, blood pounding in his cock.

But the moment is short-lived; her cries have conjured an image. It isn't the untimely repercussions of his hijacking. No, it's something much worse: an actual memory. Katniss had moaned like this, just like this, during the Quarter Quell, wrapped in Peeta's arms under a violet sky. While freeing his memory from the clutches of hijacking, he'd fixated on that moment, on Katniss's mewling and the warmth of her skin, damning and gratifying and delicious. It had seemed so genuine, so unaffected, but it couldn't be real, could it? She was acting, always mindful of the cameras, intent on finding sponsors.

But there aren't cameras in her bedroom (or if there had been, they were removed in the revolution's aftermath), and there are no sponsors to win, to placate with an artificial love. So why, Peeta wonders, is Katniss doing this? _What's her endgame?_

These questions give him to pause. His hands still and he breaks from her mouth. Katniss is undaunted, moving her lips—and fuck, her tongue—to the coasts of Peeta's jaw, to the round of his ear and Adam's apple, which quivers as he murmurs an inaudible "Katniss."

He needs to… _so good_…he needs to think and… _don't stop, please don't stop_… and they have to talk, to actually talk… _fuck…_ No, he needs her to—

"Katniss, stop!"

And she does. Her eyes are wide with alarm, and it's clear she thinks he's having an episode. Peeta rolls off of her body, shifting to the edge of the bed. The room is eerily still, pierced only by their labored breathing.

Katniss murmurs, "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted…" If Peeta had looked up, he'd have seen a telltale blush on her cheeks—mortification pirouetting in her veins. But Peeta's stare is trained on the ground, as if the threads of Katniss's carpet have enthralled him.

His lips demand that he kiss her. His cock is begging for something else, something less innocent and with far less barriers—less clothing, less thinking, less interruptions. And his heart is of two minds, or his mind is of two hearts… It's hard to tell. He wants to encircle her in his arms and he wants to run. He wants to sink into her, his nose in the tangles of her braid, his lips against her neck, and he wants to flee from her, to leave this bedroom, and free himself of her ploys.

"Where are you going?" Katniss asks. While listening to his lips and cock and heart, Peeta had forgotten about his feet. They've carried him to her door.

He isn't sure who's responding—that is, which of his organs—when he says, "I'm sorry, I just—I can't sleep here tonight."

Peeta strides down Katniss's stairs, out of her front door and into his own. He shuffles to his bathroom, flooding it with light. He turns to his mirror, unnerved by the face that greets him. Flushed cheeks and burning eyes. Crimson lips, reddened by contact, still tingling and tasting of Katniss. He raises his fingers, intent on tracing them; instead, he jerks his head and grits his teeth, allowing his upturned hand to fall.

He turns from his image, trotting to the shower. He doesn't wait for the water to warm, jumping into a tepid cascade. Peeta hopes that the chill will clear his head or, at the very least, convince his erection to slacken. He had planned to rub one out, but can't muster the interest, loosening his grip after a couple of half-hearted motions.

Eyes clenched tight, arms sagging at his sides, he rests his head on the ceramic wall of his shower. What sort of boy walks out on the girl that he loves? And what sort of boy walks out on a girl that's mid-moan?

If his brothers were alive, they'd have taunted him.

For the better part of a decade, he's wanted this. He's wanted Katniss's body under his, writhing against him, but he _doesn't_ want it like this. Not when he isn't sure that _she _wants this. Or why.

One moment, she's smiling at him beneath eyelashes. The next, she's vexed by his touch. And the next, she's flat-out avoiding him. Katniss had always been something of an enigma, but he wishes—just once—that she'd give him a hand. Some spoken indication that she needs him, whatever that might mean.

There was a time when Peeta's faith in Katniss was absolute. A time when his love was simple—naïve and well intentioned and pure. But these staples, like his family and his mind and his leg, were torn from him. Capitol citizens had feasted on the image of star-crossed lovers, of a lives-ruined, tears-shed romance. And in the end, they got their way. Katniss and Peeta are star crossed in the truest sense of the phrase: destined to be unhappy, fit for televised programming but ill at ease in the everyday.

It dawns on Peeta that he'll never trust Katniss, at least not entirely. Bile rises in his throat. It's an awful realization, but it's true. He trusts her with his life, but he's unsure if he can trust her with his heart.

Peeta laughs without humor. It's another irony to add to their grab bag of wrongs, of short straws and plain bad luck.

The odds have _never_ been in their favor.


	6. Heads

**Three months. **

Peeta's never considered himself to be strong. Sure, he can toss around bags of flour, but he isn't strong when it counts—when lives are on the line or hard choices need to be made. That was always Katniss's shtick. Probably Gale's, too.

Peeta's always been weak. He falls in love—stupidly, irrevocably—with a girl that can't love him back. He's plagued by the memory of kills, accidental and deliberate. And he didn't have the wherewithal—the strength of mind—to withstand the Capitol's brainwashing.

And now, he's paralyzed by fear and humiliation, and by a love that's undercut with hatred.

He's placed himself in isolation, in an unhappy sojourn, secure behind the bolted doors of his home and bedroom. He's glad that no one can hear his cries—his screams of anguish and self-pitying whimpers.

He hasn't returned to Katniss's home in weeks. And gauging by her silence, she doesn't mind in the least.

* * *

Katniss has never believed that she's strong. She'll rise to the occasion when it's forced on her—when the lives of loved ones are staked on her manufactured heroism. But they don't know (and she doesn't allow them to see) that she's terrified. Even when dangers are sighs in the distance.

She fought for Rue and Prim because she had hoped—well, she had clung to the hope—that their _goodness_, their beauty and strength, would redeem her. But it didn't.

She wears a mask of self-sufficiency, but only because she's terrified that they—anyone—will see her. The _real_ Katniss. The _weak_ Katniss.

Peeta is the opposite. He is good and selfless, and he is honest, even as he's lying through his teeth. She'd never understood what he saw in her.

And now, it's too late. He doesn't want her. And she doesn't blame him.

* * *

Peeta's tasted it all—all flavors of attention and neglect. As a public darling, he won unsolicited affection, been praised and celebrated and _woo_-ed and _aw_-ed, and he'd inwardly groan and outwardly smile. And then, as a public enemy, he'd been lambasted and vilified, and he'd outwardly sneer and inwardly bawl. If he had to pick his poison, told to choose the worst of it, he knows that he'd choose _this_. This silence. It's worse than any sort of scorn or undue flattery.

When it comes to Katniss, Peeta doesn't have much pride. Over the years, he'd laid his heart on the line—hers for the taking or breaking, hers to wear as jewelry or toss before her feet. So, it isn't pride that prevents him from journeying to her house—tail, among other things, between his legs. No, it's the sense—the very real, if disappointing, sense—that they're better off.

She deserves strength and friendship—not mutual sorrow. And he—well, he doesn't think that he'll move on. Not exactly, anyway. But doesn't he deserve simplicity? Someone that will treat him with respect, not fear and shades of loathing? And don't they both deserve a love that's free of volatility? A love that's defined by peace, not warring glances, not silences that feel like minefields.

It's better this way. _Isn't it?_

* * *

Katniss wants to believe that this is right, that this is _better_. She and Peeta—they don't make sense. Never have. He's Merchant, she's Seam. He's a baker, she's a hunter.

A killer and a creator? They'd be begging for heartache.

But she can't shake the memory of that night—the night that she kissed him and he'd left her, ashamed and alone, railing against her idiocy. She isn't sure why she kissed him, though she's thought of a dozen reasons. She was thrown off-kilter by her nightmare, or she just wanted to forget, to avoid thinking by choosing to feel. Or maybe she wanted reassurance—that he was still Peeta, that she hadn't lost him, or that she was someone worth loving. Someone who wasn't broken—too broken to trust or want.

Or maybe, just maybe, she'd just wanted _him_. To taste and touch Peeta, who was once so solid, so constant in her mind. To be with the man that made her laugh and smile, to feel a twinge of hope when hope seemed gone. _That's something, isn't it? It _means_ something?_

There's a discovery on Katniss's tongue, begging to be released. It's just sound and fury, and the words aren't forthcoming. They're wedged in the chapped lines of her lips.

* * *

Peeta has never felt so hopeless. In the last year, since returning from the Capitol and made aware of his hijacking, he'd been bitter. He felt cheated and he often doubted that he'd recover, but he'd never felt a hopelessness like this. Probably because, when he first returned, it didn't occur to him to hope.

But recently, he _had_ hoped. He and Katniss were doing well, were interacting and smiling and touching without flinching, and he thought that it might mean _something_—even if "something" was just the beginnings of a friendship.

But with one kiss—okay, quite a few kisses, those delicious, toe-curling kisses—they'd lost that sense of steadiness. They'd kissed away their sense of safety (and even happiness) in one another's company.

One evening, from the safety of his bedroom, he stares at her house. As if on cue, Katniss appears in her window, backlit by golden light and partially veiled by curtains. Peeta thinks that he sees her tense. And after a moment, she disappears from the window and her curtains are closed. She must have seen him.

Peeta slumps, falling to his carpet, head in hands.

* * *

Katniss is going to cry. Or at least, she thinks that she might. Tears rest on the banks of her eyes, and she begs to be spared, to be saved from the likely humiliation of wrenching sobs.

She'd seen him in his window, the picture of immobility, and his expression—hard, but doleful—had wounded her. A wound as painful as burns and cuts and scrapes.

She'd feared that expression for weeks. It's why she didn't venture to his house. Thing is, he had always looked at her with such care_, _with such palpable feeling. She had loved that look, though it took her months to acknowledge and miss it.

When he'd returned from the Capitol, he'd assumed a new expression. One she cannot bear, one that causes her to crumble. That slight furrowing of the brow and narrowing of the eyes—eyes that scream of compassion and longing and confusion, and of misery sparring with hope. Always amidst a mêlée, never with a victor. It is a stare without an object, always slightly disengaged, just to the left, her ear in lieu of her eye.

It had started to waver in recent weeks—in the weeks that they'd worked on their book. He'd smile and she'd breathe a sigh of relief—thrilled when that grin touched his eyes, genuine and spontaneous.

But she'd screwed it up—all with a kiss. And to see that look, to know that he is not hers, that his expressions are not hers, but the product of abuse and pain… It is unbearable.

Katniss scoffs, choking on swallowed emotion. If this is love (and she's not sure that it is), she wants nothing to do with it.

She collapses to the carpet, head in her hands.


	7. Exceptions

Haymitch hasn't made a habit of getting involved. In his experience, it's messy. It's dangerous. And it leads to one thing: the exhaustion of his liquor stash.

If he's being honest (and that's not very often), he knows that he cares. He can't _not_ care. It seems to be his curse.

Liquor helps. It drowns his memories, masks his pain in a burning numbness. Faces are lost in eddying waves. And the red of blood, still lingering on his hands, is swapped for the red of an abrasive scotch. Or a heady whiskey, sweet like Snow's musk.

But still, when he's drunk and when he's hungover, still swimming in last night's bottle, he _cares_.

And it pisses him off.

Haymitch wants to lose himself in drunken revelry. He wants to live in solitude, having resigned himself to slurring and stumbling, to feeding an ever-shrinking number of geese. Instead, he's become the unfortunate witness to a bumbling romance. He's seen Peeta and Katniss survive the starkest of conditions, the greatest of dangers. Both had killed, both had lost family. And both, for whatever reason, were idiots when it came to love.

Day in and day out, he watches as they blunder through the basics. It's supposed to be 'boy meets girl,' not 'boy pines over girl, girl pines over boy, neither makes a move and remains alone.'

Fact is, both Peeta and Katniss are naïve. They're children, unwittingly thrust into adult matters. By luck of the draw, they were placed in—and forced to wage—an adult's war. Of course, they're far more than children. They were changed by their experiences. They've become bitter and disillusioned and angry—more so than the average teenager, anyway. But they're still naïve. They're still searching for crumbs of affection and truth, for a love that might redeem them of their sins and solitude.

Haymitch isn't sure that those crumbs exist. There are no absolute truths—no simple good or unmitigated evil. And he's pretty sure that love isn't a panacea. He'd seen a spark of love in each tribute's eyes—a devotion to girlfriends and brothers and cousins. That spark would dim, then whimper its last as tributes were corralled onto trains. They were led to an undignified slaughter, and their love wasn't a saving grace. Love was an anesthetic. Or, in the wrong hands, a weapon. _Just like my liquor,_ Haymitch thinks.

If love were enough, his life would've followed a different path. If love were enough, Panem would be a very different place.

But who is he to say that they—Katniss and Peeta—should be rid of their illusions? Of their hopes, even as they claim that they're hopeless?

Haymitch hasn't made a habit of getting involved, but he's going to make an exception.

* * *

"I haven't seen you with the boy in awhile."

Katniss grunts, clearly averse to pursuing this subject. Haymitch had seated himself at her kitchen table, having mumbled something about needing food. She'd raised her eyebrows at his unforeseen—and passably sober—appearance. But she'd let him to enter her home, impassive to his change in demeanor. He was breaching their unspoken protocol—that they leave all matters (and each other) be. Haymitch was counting on this reception; neither he nor Katniss is governed by propriety.

"I thought you two were, you know, getting along. He was staying here, wasn't he?" It's hard to say who's more uncomfortable: Katniss, whose eyes are trained on the floor, intent on avoiding this conversation, or Haymitch, who's unsure of how to proceed.

Katniss doesn't reply, though she makes a show of inspecting the lengths of her braid.

Haymitch had attempted gentle. He'd attempted an organic discussion. But who is he kidding? He's not tender. And nothing about this situation is normal. Actually, no, strike that. It's comically normal—a girl in need of guidance, tripping over the pitfalls of love. But it's outside of his realm of experience. And hers. He and Katniss—they're familiar with war, with injury and loss; love, and the ability to discuss love, is something of a riddle.

_Fuck it_, he thinks, abandoning his attempt at restraint.

"Come on, sweetheart. Cut the crap. This," motioning between them, glancing at her bloodshot eyes and matted mane, "isn't okay. Add a bottle of liquor and you're no better than me." Truly, she isn't. Peeta's absence had had a tangible effect: the whites of her eyes are rimmed in crimson, her cheeks are gaunt, and her pallor, if possible, has deepened.

Katniss, though previously (and purposefully) silent, responds, "You're choosing _now_ to mentor me? Shouldn't you have started when we were in the arena?"

"Better late than never," he quips, smiling into his words. Haymitch is glad that her acerbic tongue is intact. It, unlike her appearance, hadn't weathered the wear of sleepless nights. But Haymitch's smile—okay, his smirk—is strained. He might not have been the greatest mentor, but he had fought—tooth and nail, ass over heels, with every resource and charm at his disposal—to bring this girl home. No easy feat when you've got the shakes.

"Look, Katniss," he continues, "I don't know what's happened with the two of you, and I don't really care, but I suggest that you get over it."

"What am I supposed to do? He's the one that stopped coming over." She'd meant to sound indifferent, and had expected to appear haughty or aloof, but her expression is one of desperation. She truly wants to know, needs to know, what to do.

"That boy spent years chasing after you, looking at you like you'd hung the moon. Don't you think it's your turn?"

"And what? I ask him to come over, just so I can get a real night of sleep?"

"You know that I'm not talking about sleep." He levels his stare on Katniss, unwilling to speak until he's sure that she's understood, until she's caught the full implications of his words. "I can't tell you what you feel, but it's about time that you figure it out. And you might want to let Peeta know—sooner rather than later. Don't you think that you owe him that much?"

For a moment, Katniss doesn't answer, staring with wide eyes at her former mentor, at a man who's never led her astray.

"I owe him more than that," she whispers.


End file.
